Barbotte

• Main Author: St-Laurent, Alexander Rock
• Format: Others
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/973739/1/St%2DLaurent_MA_S2012.pdf; St-Laurent, Alexander Rock <http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/view/creators/St-Laurent=3AAlexander_Rock=3A=3A.html> (2012) Barbotte. Masters thesis, Concordia University.

This project recreates the real-life events surrounding Harry Davis’s murder in July of 1946. Davis, the kingpin of Montreal’s underworld, functioned as an intermediary between the city’s organized crime and corrupt city officials. His murder by fellow mobster Joe Miller provoked a period of civic and legal reform, starting with the hiring of the incorruptible Pacifique “Pax” Plante as Chief of police and head of the special unit known as the Morality Squad. The unit had been designed to take down the city’s organized crime, but served as little more than a pretense to appease upright taxpayers. After decades of cooperation and payoffs between the police, politicians and the underworld, civic unrest lead Plante to step in to cleanse both the city and the police department of immoral and illegal activities, vowing to shine a light on the “Feydeau farce” that was the judicial system. Plante’s hiring, however, soon proved to be yet another pretense, as he was quickly relieved of his position, restoring the balance of power to corruption and profiteering.